“Karigan,” he repeated softly, standing to her side, close enough that she could feel his breath against her cheek. She forced herself to stare straight ahead. “Karigan. You know, that seems awfully familiar to me, an unusual name like that. What is your family name?”

Karigan wanted to squirm, run out, but by force of will she stilled herself. “G’ladheon, of Clan G’ladheon.” She did not offer him her service as was customary and polite.

Barrett stepped back and barked out a laugh. “Oh, very good! How amusing. I remember you now. Selium. The good old school days. How could I forget? You were the little bitch that took Timas out in swordplay. I wish you could have heard all he said about you later that day, and all the things he swore to do to you if ever he saw you again. Unfortunately you ran away before he could carry out his revenge. But here you are now. How very interesting.” Barrett’s expression was one of pure delight. “We all said we’d help in his revenge.”

Karigan turned to face him directly; looked him in the eye. “I am here on king’s business to deliver Lord Mirwell a message.”

“How it must gall you,” Barrett said, “to be in so subservient a position.”

“It is my honor to serve the king.”

Barrett chuckled, and Karigan figured he had little use for “honor.” “Timas, Lord Mirwell, is going to be pleased to see you again. Oh, yes, he most surely will. But not today.”

“You’re sending us away again?” Karigan asked in disbelief.

“Are you so anxious to see him?” Barrett moved in closely again.

Karigan rested her hand on the hilt of her saber. It centered her.

“Tsk, tsk,” Barrett said, not missing the movement. “Seems the Greenie is feeling threatened. I might have to ask you to remove your saber. And perhaps other things, as well…”

“I’d remind the lord-steward,” Karigan said, her voice now frigid, “that Green Riders answer only to the king, and the king does not take kindly to disrespect toward his own messengers.”

“Too bad he’s all the way in Sacor City with so many more worthy problems to preoccupy him than one lowly messenger.” Barrett actually reached out to stroke her braid.

Karigan knocked his hand away and heard steel drawn. Fergal stood there holding his saber at the ready. Though taken aback, she hesitated only half a moment.

“Fergal,” she said, “put it away.” When he didn’t obey immediately, she snapped, “Now! This one is not worth it.”

Fergal sheathed his blade, though reluctantly.

“Did you think to spill my blood, boy?” Barrett demanded. “Did you? I should call the guards in right now to throw you into a cell and teach you a lesson.”

“Lord Barrett,” Karigan said, a tight smile on her lips. An icy calm had settled over her like a mantle. The headache was gone, her absurd fear of meeting with old classmates had dissipated. “The young man’s name is Rider Duff, and I shall remind you that king’s law supersedes all others. You will not imprison him. I don’t think you comprehend how much the king values his own Riders, and he will certainly be informed of our treatment here. Never forget it was the king himself who meted out justice to Lord Mirwell’s father.”

Before the flabbergasted Barrett could respond, Karigan turned on her heel and walked out, Fergal falling in behind her. By the time they were halfway across the crowded entry hall, Barrett had regained his voice.

“Just you wait till you see Timas, bitch!” he yelled. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

Karigan shook her head in wonder at how childish Barrett sounded, and in front of all those soldiers, servants, and nobles, too.

At last, tomorrow, she could finally give Timas the dratted message and be done with it. If she didn’t see Beryl? Then she’d have nothing to report when she returned to Sacor City and it would be up to Captain Mapstone to decide what to do next.

Beryl could not remember how she came to be here, or where “here” was. It was some sort of encampment, off in the haze around her. She hardly remembered who she herself was. She was caught in a spiderweb network of gold chains anchored to her flesh with hooks. If she moved a hand, it yanked on a hook embedded in her neck. If she shifted her leg, it buried a hook deeper into her back.

The gold chains were filament fine, exquisite, like something a noble lady would wear clasped about her neck, and Beryl couldn’t say if they were real or imaginary, only that pain, akin to a razor slashing at her skin or a dagger sliding deep into muscle, racked her body at the barest movement.

So she did not move. She sat cross-legged on the ground, hands folded across her lap, and with her whole being, with everything she was, concentrated on not moving. The sounds of the encampment fled her hearing and she saw little beyond the haze. Maybe two or three times a day someone came and slackened the tension on her chains so she could relieve herself and eat the pittance of food they gave her. Trying to move her limbs at these times was almost as excruciating as the hooks grappling her flesh, and if she wasn’t careful and moved beyond the loosed length of the chains, the hooks tore flesh, spread a whiteness of pain through her mind.

In truth, she did not even know if she bled. If the wounds were real.

She tried to envision pleasant places like lush valleys and serene lakes, her Luna grazing at pasture. These visions helped until she fell asleep. All the hooks ripped through her, leaving her in red agony until she could once again find the position that would prevent pain. She could not allow herself to sleep, and from then on recited marching cadences in her mind, all that she had learned throughout her military career, over, and over, and over.